Strange Fires: Catharsis
by CheleSedai
Summary: That which does not kill us makes us stronger. The Tomorrow People talk about Adam and deal with the past. An interlude that takes place during and after the last chapter of Rooms A Thousand Years Wide.


**Title: Catharsis - An Interlude**

**Author: Chelesedai**

**Rating: PG-13**

**Pairings: Adam/Lisa (strongly implied)**

**Summary: That which does not kill us makes us stronger. The Tomorrow People talk about Adam and deal with the past. Set in the "Vamp Verse," it's a bit of an interlude during and after the last chapter of "Rooms A Thousand Years Wide."**

**Disclaimer: You know the drill. Adam Newman, Lisa Davis, Megabyte Damon, Kevin Wilson, Ami Jackson and Jade Weston are not mine. They are the property of Roger Damon Price, Thames/Tetra Television, and ITV. **

As Kevin completed his current circuit of the Ship's main chamber, he realized that it was quite some time ago that he lost count of how many circuits he had made. Not that it matter at the moment; none of the others present cared much about his nervous and worried pacing because they were dealing with worry in their own ways.

Something was wrong with Ami. It wasn't a physical sort of life-in-mortal-peril type of wrongness; if that had been the case they would not be simply biding their time at the Ship, waiting for a response or explanation of any kind from their fellow Tomorrow Person. No, this was an emotional wrongness, a type of off-balance that only came from extreme emotional trauma. While it wasn't uncommon for Ami's work to leave her in an almost constant fluctuation between emotional exhaustion and trauma, it had been quite some time since the feeling had been this jagged and jarring.

No, correction, it had only been two months since the feeling had been this jagged and jarring and that served to worry them all the more. The only thing that held them in place - keeping private counsel at the Ship - was the fact that Ami had at least taken a moment to lower her shields and let them know that she was physically alive and well. The fact that she ignored Lisa's inquiry about her mental state did not go unnoticed. Before Lisa could pry further, Ami effectively walled herself back up and shut them out but not before warning them to avoid doing something that would only attract attention, like barging into the offices of Last Rites.

Which at least explained that whatever was effecting Ami was work related. That made everyone, except Kevin, distinctly uncomfortable.

"Well, if she doesn't want to talk to us, we can't force her," Megabyte said at last, his voice sounding strangely loud to Kevin's ears after the near hour of unbroken silence in the Ship. His friend shifted where he sat on the floor, the tightness of his face and voice revealing just how hard it was for him to say those words, and how much he said them to convince himself as much as the others.

"She hasn't _wanted_ to talk for two months. That doesn't necessarily mean that she's all right," Lisa pointed out.

"But this is different." Kevin slid down the cool, smooth wall of the Ship. He slumped to the floor beside Jade. "That was – something else."

_Something else._ Kevin almost snorted at the lack of description and the simplicity of the words used to describe the full body possession that Ami had gone through. Ami's career - because really it was so much more than a job - was a big white elephant that followed them around and everyone did their very best to ignore. Even when it dressed in a pink tutu and juggling orange balls.

"This is just … different," Kevin repeated and wondered if his words sounded as flat to the others as they did to him.

Three pairs of eyes focused on him, waiting for him to elaborate. He shrugged and waved it off. "I can't explain it. I just know it."

Kevin knew that he was one of the lucky ones because that was explanation enough. It was something that he couldn't explain, a part of his deep, instinctive awareness of the world around him and his fellow Tomorrow People that he had never been able to put into words. He had a connection with each and every one of them, but there was something about that connection with Megabyte, and with Ami, that went so much further and so much deeper and defied words. No matter what, all he had to do was take a moment to think about them, no matter what the distance or time separating them, and Kevin would know if they were well or hurt, he knew what they were feeling, and what they were doing.

He stopped questioning it and trying to figure it out after he returned to the Tomorrow People years ago. That connection, that inexplicable innate awareness had not even left him then, and it had been partly what brought him back. The connection with Megabyte harkened back to their days as school mates, brought together by chance and circumstance; Kevin almost likened it to them somehow imprinting on one another the way that young chicks did on mother hens. Yet, that gave him no explanation for the same connection with Ami. The link to her had developed while he was in a coma in the hospital. When he awoke, it left him so confused and embarrassed that it led to such awkwardness around Ami that he still felt himself blush red to remember it. After all, having such an intimate awareness of a teenage girl was a far cry from sharing the same with a teenage boy one considers to be the brother one never had. Fortunately, time, maturity, and plenty of practice had taught him to temper his awareness, and huge faux pas and embarrassments were a thing of the past.

Kevin was glad that everyone accepted his innate knowledge in stride. He still caught himself breathing a sigh of relief whenever it happened though. He dreaded the day when he might actually have to try to explain that awareness with understandable words and descriptions.

"Well, then, I guess we should get back to what we were talking about?" Jade asked.

"No, we shouldn't." Megabyte glowered, the cool blue glare taking in each and every one of them. "I told you, I had this conversation with Ami and I'm not having it again. That's assuming that there is even any conversation to have."

"You can't just bury your head in the sand and continue to not deal with this, Megabyte." Lisa folded and refolded her legs. "Especially now that we're all having dreams. You know that has to mean something."

Megabyte's eyes flashed and a wave of frustration, hurt and anger so poignant came rolling off of him that Lisa flinched. "Save the psychobabble, all right, Lisa? I don't want or need to talk about Adam, no matter what all your psychology classes are telling you. Just because I'm not crying myself to sleep at night doesn't mean I haven't dealt with this."

"And that's why you're taking my head off?"

Kevin groaned and heard Jade sigh beside him.

_/Really, you'd think that they'd have enough with beating this dead horse, huh?_/ Jade's thoughts touched his lightly and tightly, the words meant for Kevin alone to hear.

This wasn't the first time that Kevin had borne witness to this conversation between his friends, if you could call it a conversation. Neither was it any secret that Megabyte had never fully dealt with losing Adam. From the time he woke up in the hospital until this present day, Megabyte refused to give out more than the vaguest of details about what happened, and he completely refused to discuss any topic concerning Adam for more than a few moments.

One didn't need to be a therapist - or a therapist in training - to know that Megabyte was still dealing with the earliest stages of grief. Unfortunately, despite knowing Megabyte as well as she did, Lisa tried to push and prod him into some sort of emotional revelation several times a year which usually only resulted in Megabyte blowing up and one or both of them with hurt feelings.

_/Megabyte. Lisa. Not tonight, please?/_ Kevin pleaded with them, interrupting their debate before it could become a full-scale argument that would leave them growling at one another for days. _/Let's just talk about the dreams./_

_/No._/ The sharp, clipped refusal came from Megabyte. Kevin felt the full brunt force of it, not just in words. It stung, like fine, quick paper cuts; it flared dark red in Kevin's mind and left a bitter tang on the back of his tongue.

Megabyte shook his head, holding Kevin's gaze and daring him to challenge him. "There's nothing to talk about. The dreams are just dreams. They don't mean anything."

"You can't really believe that, Megabyte?" Kevin couldn't see her face, but he could hear the sadness and disappointment in Jade's voice. "A shared dream between all of us? You know it isn't just coincidence."

Megabyte shrugged, "Maybe not. But I don't think it means what you all want it to mean."

Lisa tilted her head thoughtfully, looking for all the world like a therapist with a patient on her couch. "And what do you think it means?"

For a moment it looked as though Megabyte might blow up at her again, and Kevin felt the rise of heat, the growing heaviness of the air coupled with the acrid tang that made his throat convulse and swallow reflexively. Then, just as quickly it was gone and Megabyte's shoulders slumped. When he spoke, his voice held an edge, "Well, Dr. Davis, I don't think it means that Adam is going to come back to us."

The not-so-subtle insult and jab at her chosen future profession was not lost on Lisa as she stiffened, but did not rise to the bait. "No one ever suggested that –"

"No, but it's what everyone here is thinking! And if Ami was here, she'd be thinking it too! It's what everyone keeps wishing and hoping for, but it isn't going to happen!" Megabyte leapt up while talking, his voice was becoming louder and harder, a raw bite of pain radiating out from him as he spoke. The words were painful, short, quick punches to the gut and the kidneys, coated with battery acid and colored with angry brilliant flashes of bright red and black. "It's never going to happen. Adam is gone!"

Kevin closed his eyes, grateful for the support of the Ship behind him and beneath him. It wasn't consistent, this synesthesia of color and sound and taste that accompanied his telepathic abilities. Sometimes it was stronger than others, overwhelming and all encompassing. Kevin wound his way through and past it, pushing it back and down as much as he could to focus on what was happening around him.

"But we don't know what happened to him!" The heat of Lisa's voice matched Megabyte's, but she tasted desperate and cool, green and blue, like sea salt and spring growth. "Maybe these dreams are trying to tell us that! Maybe –"

"Dammit, Lisa, wake up! You say that I'm in denial? You're the one in denial. We know what happened to Adam. I can feel it, you can feel it, we all feel it, but no one wants to admit it!"

"He disappeared," Jade jumped into the argument. "That's all we know. We were there together, Megabyte. We saw it happen. He was just gone, we don't know –"

"Adam is dead!"

The words silenced them all, even the hum and buzz of the Ship seemed to fall quiet in the wake of that pronouncement. The words hung in the air – all ash and black, tasting of fresh dirt and crumbling stale mausoleums - like some horrible family skeleton that had only just tumbled out of the closet and everyone was too afraid and ashamed to admit that they had known it was there all along.

_We always knew._ Kevin could see the truth of it in the faces of Jade and Lisa, and he felt it deep inside of himself. None of them had ever dared to speak the words aloud, as if by saying them that would somehow make them into an undeniable truth and write them forever in stone.

"We don't – " Lisa stopped, her voice hitched and she choked on a sob.

Megabyte spoke with more tenderness than one might have expected him to call upon after the angry tension that lurked in the room. He brushed Lisa's cheek with his hand and Kevin realized he was wiping away her tears, "Yes, Lisa we do."

The oldest among them crumbled then, and probably would have fallen to floor if Megabyte had not been fast enough to catch her. Her entire body shook with painful sobs that echoed in the open chamber of the Ship while she clung to Megabyte as though he were the only anchor in the world. Kevin suddenly felt adrift, aching for her anew, remembering the giggles and smiles and whispers of engagement that she and Adam shared in those days before – his death.

Kevin was never aware of his movement. He didn't know how he came to be standing with Megabyte and Lisa and Jade, all of them hugging one another, sharing a poignant moment of catharsis.

But even as he hugged his friends, he couldn't ignore the hollow numbness he felt inside, the absence of pure sadness, and nagging tug deep down – the other bits of awareness fading and fraying at the edges but still tasting of ash and stale air, colored gray and dull red - that told him that somehow, they were still missing something.

End


End file.
